Alabama confab to focus on water

Jul 16, 2003

Water resource professionals from throughout Alabama will explore solutions to current and future challenges facing the quality and quantity of Alabama's water supply when they gather Sept. 3-5 in Orange Beach for the 2003 Alabama Water Resources Conference.

The conference's comprehensive agenda will focus on key issues in water management, use and conservation, with presentations on a broad range of topics that include agricultural waste management, floodplain management, legal issues in water management, watershed assessment, control of non-point pollution sources, economics and water policy, and grassroots water quality restoration efforts.

Water war updates

Conference participants also will hear the latest updates on possible truces in the state's long-running water-use wars with Florida and Georgia. Scheduled guest speakers include U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Alabama Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley.

Though geared toward water resources managers, researchers, planners, engineers, consultants and regulators, the conference is open to the public, including local and state politicians, members of special-interest and environmental groups and concerned citizens.

“All of these groups have different perspectives on the state's current water situation and on the best ways to approach resolving the conflicts and problems that arise,” conference organizer Dennis Block, associate director of the Auburn University Environmental Institute (AUEI), said. “This conference is an open forum for debate on and discussion of the issues.”

The conference will be held at the Perdido Beach Resort Hotel and Conference Center in Orange Beach. Registration for the three-day conference is $200 before Aug. 29 and $250 thereafter. Hotel reservations, available at an Alabama Water Resources Conference group rate of $76 plus tax per night, must be made by Aug. 3.

Additional information

For more information on the conference, call the AUEI at (334) 844-4132, or find information and a registration form online at http://www.auei.org at www.auei.org.

Co-sponsors of the annual conference are the AUEI, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, the Alabama Office of Water Resources, the Alabama Agricultural Land Grant Alliance, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Alabama Power Company, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Alabama Section of the American Water Resources Association, and the U.S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division.